By GIANNI TRUZZI, SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, September 22, 2005

"Welcome to my world," says Rafael as he breezes across the department-store aisles, "where everything is perfect." The smooth operator prowls through his salesman's savanna, an Eden that provides him with elegance, prestige and sex, all readily available to gild his charade of mastery.

That's certain to change, once this ambitious and amorous poseur accidentally kills his rival for promotion to floor manager. His attempts to cover up the mistake leave him at the mercy of the homely salesgirl who witnessed it, leading to the blackest of comedies.

It's a simple idea, and Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia uses the table-turning premise to explode the pretense of Latin manhood.

As Rafael, Guillermo Toledo oozes a slippery machismo that sends him spinning once his carefully constructed artifice begins to crash. Mónica Cervera starts out vaguely sympathetic as Rafael's meek tormentor Lourdes, then turns delicious as the deranged harpy who reveals herself to be a cunning and business-capable vixen.

It's dark, well-paced fun, even as it sags from the over-eager absurdities de la Iglesia layers onto the well-established formula. Devices come and go with little justification, such as the in-character asides to the camera, as in "Alfie," that dominate the early scenes but disappear soon after. So too does the haunting spirit of his victim, Don Antonio (Luis Varela), seem like a latecomer bit of business to further a stuck plot.

That's no small indictment, given that the joy of a black comedy relies on a tightly crafted story in which all pieces fit without seam. Instead, "El Crimen" often feels as if its sections were filmed at intervals weeks apart, forgetting what elements had been established before.

Lourdes' escalating demands, from workplace promotions and ultimately to marriage, beg the eternal question of who is ever really in charge between the sexes. The conventions of the genre seem to provide some answers, as Lourdes' single-minded power drives Rafael to exchange perfection of lifestyle for perfection in crime. Our pleasure is in watching the downfall of this self-important fraud as he plots murder -- although whose is the question -- through an elaborate scheme.

"El Crimen Perfecto" is far from perfect, but it only commits minor infractions of inconsistency and zeal for every plot twist. It can be pardoned as long as it never commits the crime of boredom.